Fate of Fortune, Price of Glory
by WalkingInMemphis
Summary: Sequel to Fortune & Glory. An Ancient Brotherhood. A Long Awaited Revenge. Two Estranged Historians. Two Hostages. One Altar. RileyOC....FOURTH CHAPTER FINALLY UP!
1. Chapter 1

**Price of Glory;Fate of Fortune**

Chapter One:

A/N-Hey guys! I'm back! So just to fill you in, it's been 3 years since Fortune and Glory. That's all you really need to know really-I think the story will fill everything else in (eventually, of course). This sequel is still TENTATIVE, so I need feedback on wether I should keep it! So reviews would be awesome! Enjoy!

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Chapter One:

The chamber was quiet at night. Buried deep under the ground, far from the traffic and noise below, the nearby lake lapping at the rocky shore was a barely discernable background.

During the day it had been teeming with people, not only tourists but historians, examining the cavern on various federal grants from a plethora of countries. Scientists also came in droves, battling the historians for samples of the walls, the ceiling and lake.

But now it was nighttime, and all of the tourists, historians and scientists were long gone, sleeping at home or accommodated in one of the ritzy hotels that lined the island beaches.

All except for one.

A lone woman stood in the middle of the chamber, dressed in a matching black skirt and suit jacket coupled with a white collared shirt. The only color she wore was a bright red identification tag clipped to her breast pocket with an aged photo, name and highest clearance level. Everyone who visited or worked in the cavern more than once knew that the tag was a mere formality, for nothing affecting this chamber or the landmark surrounding it happened without her knowlege.

The young woman stood in the near-bare room, her eyes tracing the empty space and remembering what used to inhabit it. Three years ago, this cavern was covered with mountains of gold, jewels, and silver that portrayed a scene from The Arabian Nights. The treasure was now long gone, shipped off to private collections and museums. Only a few pieces remained. A few large statues, bolted to the floor and too large to carry out. Two showcases displayed jeweled crowns and goblets, choice pieces donated by the founders of the treasure. And off in the corner of the room, still illuminated by the same shaft of moonlight that bathed it three years before, was a stone altar.

She leaned over the altar, tracing the dark brown stains that covered the surface in a fluid manner that suggested habit, her gaze meandering around the top with a faraway look instilled in them.

"Evening, Doctor."

She whipped around fully before the phrase was even finished, her eyes wide and startled before they settled on the shadowy form in the doorway.

"Oh." she sighed. "It's just you."

A tall, curly-haired man stepped through the stone doorway, the mounted strobe lights illuminating his honey-colored hair and laughing brown eyes.

"Exactly who were you expecting, Claire?" he asked, mocking indignation. "Having clandestine meetings in the treasure chamber, are we?"

Claire Howe smiled slightly and shook her head. "No, Grant."

Grant Powell was one of the only other Americans working at the Blackbeard Institute, having arrived a year ago as the director of biological studies. He was in his mid thirties with a sharp mind and a sharper tongue, and thus was simultaneously the most liked and hated person in the institute.

He was also Claire's boyfriend.

"Well, I should hope so," he joked, winding his arms around her waist. "The only person you're supposed to be having clandestine meetings with is me."

Claire placed her hand against his chest, lightly warding off his descending head.

"Not in here, Grant." she said quietly.

Grant looked around and shivered. "Yeah," he agreed, "this place always gives me the creeps."

"Me too." Claire answered, looking back at the altar over her shoulder as she guided him out of the cavern and down the long stone hallway.

"What were you doing down there so late anyway?" Grant asked curiously as Claire masked as yawn, helping her into one of the motorboats that lined the shore of the underground lake. "It's past twelve; I thought security closed this place down at eleven thirty."

Claire waved a hand and fought off another gaping yawn. "Jerry always lets me stay down. Probably because I employ him. Or that he thinks I live down there. Either one."

"About that," Grant began, looking concerned. "Claire, I really think you're spending too much time here. You're the first to work every morning, and yes, security is hedging bets that you sleep in your office."

"I like my job." Claire said stubbornly.

"Believe me, I know. And I realize that you're social life is here as well since we started dating. But you really do work too much. Take a vacation"

Claire smiled sleepily at him. "I'm guessing this vacation would also include you?"

Grant smiled charmingly. "Obviously. C'mon, let's go back up to the States! I haven't been there for months, and I'm starting to lose track of what season it is."

"It's October." Claire said shortly, suddenly awake and alert. "Fall."

"Exactly! We need to go look at some real weather, see trees die and all that. Let's go up to Connecticut or Massachusetts and stay in one of those bed and breakfasts."

Claire shook her head. "I can't right now, Grant. We're swamped with the new wing opening, and you just got those lake results. Maybe in the spring."

She climbed out of the boat silently as they stopped at the other side of the lake and started to ascend the narrow staircase up to the museum. Grant trailed behind her, protesting.

"Claire, have you even been to the States since you came here?"

"No."

"Not even to visit your brother?"

Claire turned to face him as she bounded up the last stair, stepping into the museum's study. "Ian's rich, remember? He flies down once a month, you know that."

"What about that friend of yours, Abigail?"

Claire walked out of the study quickly, navigating her way through the old fort with ease. "I talk to her all the time on the phone" she informed him over her shoulder as he followed her out the door and into the parking lot.

"Claire! Claire, c'mon stop running away from me." Grant pleaded as he finally caught up with her by her car and placed his hands on her shoulders. "Why haven't you gone back to the States?".

Claire shrugged. "I just don't feel like it, okay?"

"You've been here for _two years_. Every time I propose we go up you either avoid the question or just flat out refuse."

Claire crossed her hands over her chest defensively. "I like it here."

"Did something happen there?" he persisted. "Is there something I should know about?"

"No!" she yelled, more agitated than Grant had ever seen her. "And it's really none of your business!"

Looking at the confused and hurt expression on her boyfriend's face, Claire immediately felt like an idiot. "Look Grant, I'm really sorry. I'm just tired, I need to get home and get some real sleep. It hasn't been happening much lately, if you could tell."

Grant ran a hand through his unruly hair and sighed, nodding. "Do you need a ride home?"

"No. I'm good. My car's still here." She leaned over and kissed him lightly on the lips. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight." he echoed as she turned and climbed into her car, smiling and waving slightly as she backed out of the lot and drove into the night.

Claire pressed a hand against her forehead, keeping the other firmly on the wheel as she let out a weary sigh and yawned. That had been a disaster. She had worked so hard to keep her job and Grant from her past that eventually he was bound to wonder why she never went back.

"It's nothing." she convinced herself. "it's stupid, it's trivial. Just tell him, he won't even care."

She hadn't even told him about Robinson. Well, of course he knew about Robinson, he worked at the damn place. Everyone knew the story of the cold-blooded murderer who almost killed her and her colleagues and met his untimely end in the very cavern they were just standing in. Of course, it was never released exactly _who_ had pulled the trigger and given Robinson his untimely end.

That is what she should have been worried about telling him. That would be normal.

But what she was worried about telling him had nothing to do with Robinson. Not directly, anyway.

Pulling up to her driveway, Claire stepped out of her car, scooping up all of the files in the passenger seat with one arm.

Struggling up the three stairs to her front door, Claire couldn't help but give a smile at her house, which, during all times, never failed to tug the corners of her mouth.

Once a small plantation manor, it was a pale yellow with white shutters and two looming pillars in the front, native flowers of all colors overflowing in the window flowerboxes. While certainly impressive, Claire thought of it as cozy, despite that it was still cluttered with moving boxes.

It had been the first thing she ever bought when she arrived here two years ago, distraught and confused and in need of a pillar, someplace to come home to. It had been her promise, her confirmation to herself that she was not going back to the States.

Claire juggled her files from hand to hand as she searched for her keys in her purse and finally unlocked the door, throwing her papers down on the nearest available surface and kicking the door shut with her foot.

"I'm home." she mumbled to her empty house, knowing that there would be no response.

Carrying her black power heels in one hand, she slowly climbed up the white spiral staircase to her room, the one place in the house fully unpacked despite her two-year inhabitance.

The walls were a cheery blue, their only adornment rows and rows of bookshelves, full of Claire's favorite worn, dog-eared novels competing for space with research books full of annotations.

The only surface was a small side table beside her bed that held the only two photographs in the room. One was a twenty-one year old Claire standing with her brother Ian at her college graduation.

The other, adorned in a pure silver frame encrusted with tiny fish cutouts made of gold was a picture of four smiling people with their arms around each other's shoulders, the background a giant sloping lawn in front of a Tudor mansion.

The two in the middle, a young man and woman, had their arms wrapped around each other and were smiling, blissfully happy and completely ignorant of the outside world. The young woman's arm, the one not wrapped around the man, was in front of her, her hand splayed out on her chest so the glittering diamond ring was impossible to ignore.

"Happy 25th Birthday, Claire" the inscription on the bottom of the frame read. "Love, the History Squad; Ben, Abbie and Riley."

As she collapsed onto her bed, Claire reached for the photograph for the millionth time in morbid tradition. She stared at the young man and woman and the ring that commanded the picture and smiled sadly.

"I can hardly even recognize myself." she whispered, glancing at the full-length mirror on the other side of the room. She glanced at her bureau, where, at the bottom drawer, the ring in that picture was hidden, hiding in a pair of pink fuzzy socks.

Clenching her jaw to keep the tears from coming, a old trick that she had mastered, Claire returned the picture to the table and reached over to the pill container situated conveniently next to it, swallowing four dry with practiced ease.

As the sleeping medication washed over her, Claire lay back on her bed, reveling in old memories as the medication guided her into a happily dreamless sleep.

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The next morning came as a bright and sunny day, with barely a cloud in the sky and a cool breeze running though that kept the temperature from being unbearably hot in the late morning heat.

The man who walked down the street was sweating bullets anyway.

Dressed in a black suit, he stood out from the pastel-clad natives and tourists like a sore thumb, but ignored the stares as he briskly stalked down the street.

When he finally arrived at his destination, he couldn't help but marvel at the changes that had beset it. Yes, the giant fort was still there, a majestic fortress slightly worn by age, but around it a gigantic modern building had been constructed out of simply glass and steel, completely transparent, so one could see the hundreds of people bustling around inside, working on various machines and microscopes.

In the front of it all where he now stood, a glass sign matching the building read "The Blackbeard Institute of History and Science."

Straightening his tie and wishing to be anywhere else in the world but here, the man walked through the steel doors into the hubbub inside.

Two guards immediately stepped to his sides. "Can we help you, sir?"

The man stood up as straight as he could and tried to look important. "I'm here to see Claire Howe."

The guard nodded, pulling out a walkie-talkie. "Do you have an appointment?"

The man ran a hand through his hair nervously. "Well, she's not really expecting me…."

"Hey Jerry!" came a voice behind them. The man turned to see a tall blond man com striding through the doors, clapping the guard on the arm in greeting. "Who are you bullying today?"

" Hey Dr. Powel. This guy wants to see Dr.Howe." Jerry said, inclining his head toward him.

Dr.Powell raised his eyebrows. "Claire? Why don't I take him, I'm going up to see her right now."

Jerry shrugged and nodded, and Dr.Powell beckoned to him, the two men quickly falling into step as he guided him through the crowds of white-coated individuals and up a winding glass staircase that seemed to extend several stories.

"Sorry about Jerry, he can be a little paranoid." he apologized. "I'm Grant Powell, the Director of Biology. Dr. Howe is a friend of mine. Can ask I why you want to see her?"

He fumbled with an answer, knowing that the truth would not be believed. "There's been a, ah, historical find over at my workplace. We wanted her to check it out."

Dr. Powell grinned. "I'm sure she'll be thrilled. Sorry about the stairs. Claire figures that if she puts her office up high enough no one will come to bother her."

He winced at the tone of familiarity in the Doctor's voice, reminding himself that he shouldn't be bothered by that anymore. He wasn't here to see her. He was just doing this for Ben.

When they finally arrived on the fifth floor, he could immediately tell which office was Claire's. The only untranslucent room in the building, wooden bookshelves were pushed up against the glass walls to prevent the outsider from seeing in. The glass door, the only window into the room, was engraved with the words "Dr. Claire Howe-Director"

Inside, through the enormous stacks of paper and books cluttering the room, Riley could somewhat make out the top of a blonde head bent over a desk and concealed by a enormous tower of dusty books.

Dr. Powell knocked on the door. "Oh, I forgot." he started, turning to him as a muffled "Come in!" sounded from inside the room in a familiar voice. "What's your name?"

The man swallowed hard. "Riley," he answered hoarsely. "Riley Poole."

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Claire squinted at the ancient writing on the gold plate, trying to translate the second line.

"And the oceans will….something something…blood." she muttered to herself. "Well, that sounds interesting."

The phone on her desk beeped and she reached over to press the speakerphone button, her eyes not leaving the inscription.

"Doctor Howe."

"Hey Claire, it's Jerry. Just letting you know that I sent Dr.Powell with a guy that's here to see you."

Claire frowned. She had purposely no scheduled any appointment today so she could study this Aztec plate and apologize to Grant.

"Did you catch his name?" she asked curiously. Jerry knew what her brother looked like, and she couldn't think of any other men who would come to see her without an appointment.

"Nope. He looked like a Feeb, though."

"A what?"  
Jerry chuckled. "A Fed. A Federal Agent."

Claire shrugged. "Okay, he's probably a friend of Ian's. Thanks for telling me."

"No problem"

Clicking off her phone, Claire bent back down to the plate, determined to translate the second line before she was interrupted.

A knock on the door immediately followed. Claire gritted her teeth.

"Come in" she yelled without looking up from the plate. _Come one, I know that verb…derramar…it's something to do with juice…mixing the juice? No, it's something reflexive…._

"Morning Claire!" Grant called as he strolled in. Claire sighed and relinquished her plate, standing up and turning around.

"Morning Grant" she replied, "Jerry told me you brought me a-"

Her words got lost in her throat as she caught sight of the man standing behind Grant. Her hand shot out to grip the desk behind her to keep her from simply falling over from shock.

Jerry was right. In a black suit he looked like a Federal Agent, the kind Ian was forever working with. She'd never seen him in a suit without wearing a colorful tee-shirt underneath it, usually promoting some overly loud rock band, and his Converse. He was wearing a light blue collared shirt underneath his suit, and she couldn't help but sneak a look at his shoes. Black dress. Definitely not Converse.

His hair was longer, but strangely neater than she had ever seen it, and he was wearing his glasses, which he had always hated.

He looked good, Claire admitted, but he didn't look like Riley. Not her Riley, anyway.

For a moment she wondered if he wasn't really Riley, just some obtuse historian who looked freakishly like Riley. That would explain the dress. He was probably wondering why Dr. Howe had been gaping at him for the last few minutes in silence. How embarrassing.

"Hello Claire" the obtuse historian finally said quietly, his eyes boring into hers. She could see the emotion in his eyes, the intensity as he stared straight at her.

Yep, it was Riley. No one else had eyes like that.

Claire wished she could faint, like those heroines from old movies that fell dead to the floor whenever they encountered a shocking situation. At the time, it had seemed impossibly cowardly, but during times like these, she found the idea quite clever.Your ex-fiancé shows up after two years of no communication, obviously wanting to talk to you while your current boyfriend is in the room. Bam, you're on the floor, no worries, got yourself at least an hour of unconscious contemplation. After all, no one's going to interrogate a woman who just fainted.

Claire closed her eyes and willed herself to fall gracefully to the ground, but the dizziness wouldn't come. She opened her eyes, and Riley was still standing there, staring at her in that intense way of his, and Grant was still looking completely out of the loop. Damn

"What are you doing here?" she demanded, struggling to keep her voice even and failing.

Riley's eyes flashed in anger. "It's nice to see you to," he replied sharply.

Claire felt a surge of dormant fury that the man in front of her always managed to call up. "What the hell to you want me to say?" she snapped, the angry words stabling her from the verge of tears. "Gee Riley, sit down, have a cup of damn coffee. Bye the way, long time no see!"

Riley snorted derisively. "Well, you could have started with 'Hi, Riley, how've you been? Since, you know, I haven't seen you in two years since I ran off to the fucking Caribbean Islands."

Claire blinked in surprise. Riley barely ever swore, not even during the fight they had two years ago that drove her here.

"I distinctly remember you being pretty encouraging in that decision." she replied acidly, when she had found her bearings.

"Well why wouldn't-"

Grant cleared his throat loudly. Claire blinked, completely forgetting that he was still in the room.

"What's going on?" he asked, looking from Claire to Riley. "Claire, who is this guy?"

Claire looked at Grant's confused face and felt like the most despicable person on the planet. Why hadn't she told him when she had the chance?

"He's my, um," she started; staring at the floor and wishing God would smite her already and get it over with. "He's my-"

"I'm her ex-fiancé." Riley cut in. "Do you mind?"

Grant bristled. "Actually, I do. I'm her boyfriend."

Claire closed her eyes, but not before she saw Riley looked like he'd gotten punched in the stomach. A long, ugly silence stretched over the room.

"Well," Riley finally replied when he'd recovered, a disgusted look on his face. "You certainly didn't waste any time, did you?"

"Hey!" Grant yelled, rounding on the shorter menacingly, as Riley stepped to meet him, an equally angry look on his face. Claire hurriedly stepped between them, her hands thown out.

"Both of you calm down. Grant, Riley didn't mean it, he was just being an asshole." Claire sighed and turned to her glowering ex-fiance.

"Riley." she finally stated as calmly as possible, "Why are you here?"

Riley seemed to remember something and sank down into a chair, looking exausted. Claire remembered it was very early in the morning in D.C and wondered how much sleep he had gotten in the last 24 hours.

"I'm here as a favor to Ben," he explained, his expression grim. "He's been contacted by a group of people who want him to find something."

Claire's eyebrows collided in confusion and she took a seat across from Riley. "Like another treasure?"

Riley hesitated. "Sort of. And we need your help."

"Why?" Claire asked bluntly. Ben, of all people, should know that the chances of her working with Riley again were slim to none, leaning heavily towards none.

He winced. "The group that contacted him specifically requested that you work with us. They won't allow anyone else."

She frowned. "Then you can tell Ben that I'm very sorry, but he's going to have to turn them down-"

"-Claire," Riley pleaded, "wait, there's something I haven't explained yet. Ben…isn't working for these people…voluntarily."

Claire's face turned from annoyance to concern. "What happened? What did they do?"

Riley broke her gaze, staring down at the floor, but she could see that his eyes were overly bright.

"They took Patrick."

Claire stood up, a hand flying to her mouth reflexively and a myriad of questions fighting each other to be the first out of her mouth. Patrick, Ben's now six year old son, was Riley's godson, and might as well have been his son. The two were incredibly close, and Claire couldn't even imagine how Riley must be feeling right now.

"How fast can we get there?" she asked, ignoring Grant's noise of protest.

Riley lifted his head, his shining eyes conveying to her what his mouth couldn't. "I have a jet waiting. We could stop at your place to get your things."

As Claire began to gather random items from her desk and throwing them into her bag, Riley's outstretched hand stopped her.

"There's one more thing." he began, his eyes apologetic. "They…they people that took Pat…..I guess they thought that they needed another way to secure your cooperation."

Claire closed her eyes, knowing what was about to come next and trying to deny it.

"They took your brother." Riley said hoarsely. "And they're going to kill both of them if we don't do what they say."

Claire shut her eyes tighter, screwing up her eyelids until the world was as black as tar, but Riley's words were still echoing in her head, sickeningly lucid, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't goddamn faint.

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**Thanks for reading! I've already written up the second chapter, so it's up to you guys to tell me whether I should keep the story or not. I accept constructive criticism, of course.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Hi all. So, I decided to completely rewrite the second chapter to add in Ian's scene, so the fight flashback is going to have to wait. Don't worry, you'll get it eventually. Sorry for the wait.**

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Claire rested her head in her hands as she leaned up against the passenger door of Riley's black Jaguar, the air conditioner blasting blissfully in her face.

Riley cast a concerned look over to her from his position at the steering wheel. She hadn't spoken much since he'd told her the news, and she hadn't cried at all. He supposed that he should be infinitely thankful, but it worried him more than anything else. Claire wasn't a watering pot or anything, but she wasn't they the type to bottle up like she had for the last hour or so. Something was clearly wrong.

But, he reminded himself, gripping the steering wheel tightly, it wasn't his job to make sure Claire was healthy and happy. He had given up that responsibility two years ago, so Gary or whatever that ponce's name was could make sure she was alright.

Claire twisted her head in her hands to stare up at him, letting the AC run through her pulled-back hair. She could see Riley's jaw tighten as he noticed her gaze on him and kept his eyes firmly on the road to her house.

"What happened to you?" she asked quietly.

Riley wouldn't look at her. "What are you talking about?"

Claire sat up, shrugging her seatbelt off her shoulders so she could face him completely. "Riley, you're wearing a suit, a real suit, with a collared shirt, both of which are worn in, so you've worn them before."

"So are you." he shot back defensively. Claire ignored him and continued.

"Your hair is combed, you're wearing your glasses, which you hate-"

"My contacts dried up!"

"-And you're wearing dress shoes, which you despise. From the minute you walked into my office you've put on this completely formal Type A miscreant front, which I know is not you-"

"-No, you don't know that, Claire." Riley snapped. "You haven't known me for two years."

"I know you wouldn't turn into some spokesperson for Corporate America. You haven't smiled once, made any kind of inane comment-"

"-Sorry, I didn't really feel like cracking any jokes, given the situation." he retorted.

"I barely even recognized you when you walked through the door. You own a Jaguar, Riley. We're driving in a car that you once said was only owned by 'syndicated bloodsuckers who needed to compensate for their lack of-"

"Yeah, I know what I said." Riley interrupted, irritated. "That was a really long time ago."

"So what happened to you?"

Riley turned and glared at her straight in the eyes, blatantly ignoring the road and pinning her back to her seat.

"I grew up, Claire. I stopped acting like _a child with no responsibility or sense of duty_. Now put your seatbelt back on."

The fighting gleam that had shone in Claire's eyes during the last few moments was extinguished as Riley threw the very words that she had screamed at him two years ago back in her face. She leaned all the way back against her black leather seat, sullenly dragging her seatbelt back across her chest and despising the car with every pore in her being.

"I happened." she answered, looking out the window. "You did this because of us."

Riley snorted. "Don't be so melodramatic, Claire. We don't all change our lifestyles because once upon a time, you wanted us to. I did this to myself because I needed to change. I realized that I couldn't act like a joyriding undergraduate forever."

Claire was silent for a block or two.

"I didn't mean it," she finally spoke, keeping her eyes on the moving scenery outside the tinted window. "When I told you that two years ago. I didn't mean it."

Riley shook his head and smiled ruefully. "Yes you did." he replied, guiding the Jaguar through a sharp turn with a little more force than necessary.

"No, I didn't." Claire argued through gritted teeth. "I was angry…incredibly angry. I was hurt, and-I knew it was a low blow, but I wanted to make you mad. _I didn't mean it_."

By the time she finished, Claire realized that her tone had turned pleading rather than adamant and looked down at the purse clutched in her lap.

Riley cleared his throat. "It doesn't matter." he said, in a tone that was suspiciously steady. Claire waited for him to continue, but he kept silent until she started to fiddle with the dashboard.

"Don't touch that." he snapped, and Claire drew her hand away, lips quirking in a stunted smile at the first sign of _her_ Riley since he had arrived.

"It's the yellow house on your right." she instructed, pointing as Riley rolled down her street. They didn't speak as Riley pulled into her driveway. Grant's car was already there.

"Nice house."

"Thanks."

As Claire sat in the passenger's seat, staring at her house, she opened her mouth, gathering strength to get out what she was about to say.

A door slammed next to her. Claire looked over and saw that Riley was already out of the car and striding up into her house, leaving her alone in the car.

She let out a ragged breath, watching him enter her house without looking back at her once. She couldn't recognize him now, wouldn't have been able to pick him out in the street as man she was once desperately in love with.

Tilting her head back slightly to make the tears retreat into her eyes, Claire took a deep breath and exited the car, hoping that Riley hadn't managed to pick a fight with her boyfriend for the two minutes she'd left him alone.

Grant looked up as her heard her slam the front door, already waiting in the kitchen with a black duffel bag on the floor at his side.

"I already brought my stuff from my place." he said by way of greeting. "Do you need any help packing?"

"Wait." Riley interjected, who was leaning on the opposite corner of the kitchen. "Who said that you were coming?"

"Of course I'm coming." Grant barked. "I'm not sending her off to _you people _by herself."

"We just happen to be her friends!"

"Friends she hasn't spoken to in two years!"

Claire finally stepped in. "Enough, both of you." she said wearily. "Riley, Grant's my boyfriend. He has a right to come with us."

Riley's face didn't move a tick, but his eyes flinched as the word 'boyfriend' came out of Claire's mouth.

She turned to a pleased-looking Grant. "Grant, Ben and Abbie and…..yes, Riley, are my friends. And I do keep in touch with Abbie, you knew that. Now if you both excuse me, I'm going to pack."

Riley stood, perplexed for a moment, hearing Claire's feet pound up the staircase before bolting after her. Grant made a noise of protest and followed.

"What do you mean, you and Abbie keep in touch?" Riley demanded as he bounded up the last few steps and entered Claire's room as she threw clothes haphazardly into a dusty suitcase. "You haven't contacted any of us in two years. I would have known if you did." He actually _would _know, right to the moment Claire had contacted any of them. He had taps on all Ben's and Abbie's phones and email accounts just in case Claire had ever felt the need to drop a line to the other two members of her estranged team.

Claire shrugged, but the look on her face suggested that she knew exactly what Riley had done. "I write, occasionally. Abbie always wanted to know if I as okay."

Riley looked flummoxed. "You write letters? Like, regular mail? Does anyone actually do that anymore?"

"It's slow." She admitted. "But it's personal. People don't bother with personal things anymore."

Riley leaned up against the door, processing this information. "Abbie never told me."

Claire gave him another shrug, the kind of shrug that she always gave when she simply didn't want to answer. "She probably had her reasons."

Riley furrowed his eyebrows. "What….plausible reason could she have for keeping that information from me?" he asked indignantly, trailing Claire as she dragged her suitcase into the bathroom and began to sweep her shower contents into it.

Claire paused, kneeling by her bathroom tub. "Maybe because she knew that it was _none of your business_." she hinted, her hard stare at him softening at his obvious confusion. "Really Riley, do you think you'd have wanted to know what was going on in my life months ago?"

"Yes!" he protested, handing her the toothbrush lying by the sink. "I would've liked to know that you were…..okay, and…..happy, and…..woah, what's in here?"

He poked at a crack behind her bathroom mirror.

"That's none of your business either." Claire said too quickly to sound offhand.

Riley raised his eyebrows in her direction and pushed back the mirror on its hinge to reveal the cabinet behind it.

Riley's eyes widened in shock as he took in the dozens of orange pill containers perilously stacked in every spare inch of the cabinet. He grabbed a few from the top row, eyes scanning the labels in disbelief. "Rozerem, Ambien, Lunesta, Sonata…." He slammed the down on the bathroom counter. "Claire, these are all sleeping pills."

She swallowed hard. "I work weird hours" she offered weakly, her immediate excuse to any doctor who questioned giving her a prescription.

"Don't even _try_ that with me." Riley argued, raising his voice. "There aren't enough late hours in the world to require that many pills."

"What's going on?" Grant questioned, appearing at the door. He flinched as he saw the medicine cabinet. "Woah, Claire, what's that for?"

"Nothing" she reassured him quickly. "Riley's overreacting."

"_Overreacting_?" Riley exploded, advancing on her in a matter of seconds. "Do you have any idea how dangerous these things are? Hundreds of people die every year from overdosing on sleeping pills, and I bet none of them have as many as you do. What the _hell_ were you thinking?"

"Will you stop that?" she hissed. "Stop swearing! It's a completely filthy habit, and God knows where you've picked it up-"

"You want to talk about habits?" Riley raged. "Let's talk about how you've become a _junkie_ over the last two years!"

"I am _not_ a junkie!" she protested violently, shooting up to her feet with her hands on her hips. "I have a completely valid prescription for every single one of those bottles!"

"From how many doctors?" Riley bit in. "How many different people did you have to persuade to give you a prescription for just a few bottles? Do you have any idea about how may laws you've broken?"

"Laws _I've_ broken? Ha!" Claire spat, her face red. "I'm pretty sure you've got me beat on that one!"

"Don't change the subject!"

"What are you going to do?" she asked, defense turning her tone bitter, "call the police on me? Have me arrested before we even get on the plane?"

"Of course not." he snapped. "I'm just going to get rid of all of these." Sweeping his hand across the cabinet, all the bottles fell in a wave onto the counter, bouncing on the granite as Riley began to rip off the caps and dump their continents into the toilet.

"Riley, don't!" Claire shouted in alarm as pills began to dissolve in her toilet bowl.

"Try and stop me" he shot back, without even looking up from his work.

Knowing full well that Riley was a great deal stronger than her, and that Grant wasn't going to break out of his stupor and fly to her rescue anytime soon, she let out a small scream of frustration and barreled out of the bathroom, her suitcase in one hand as she knocked Grant out of the way with the other.

After her angry footsteps had echoed down the hall into her bedroom, Riley turned to Grant, flushing the toilet as the last of the pills swirled down into the safety of the pipes. Grant noticed that the man's face was white, and his hands trembled slightly as he braced himself on the counter.

"If you knew anything……_anything_ about this." he said menacingly, his eyes locked on the floor, "I swear I'll-"

"-No! Of course not!" Grant protested, rubbing his forehead in weariness. "Look, I know we got off on the wrong foot, but I really do care about Claire. If I knew…what she was doing, I would have stopped it a long time ago."

Riley sighed, turning to sit down on the toilet seat. "Do you have any idea why she would do this?" he asked, his voice slightly hoarse from shouting.

Grant shrugged. "I haven't spent a lot of time here. I've never…..well, we've never.…" he stopped, coloring slightly. "Claire doesn't like people coming to her house. She's always been extremely private. The only thing I noticed was that when I first arrived here, she always looked really haggard in the mornings, like she'd been working all night. Eventually it stopped, and she looked fine. I just thought that she'd finally…..come to terms with her problems back in the states."

Claire appeared back in the doorway, her suitcase full. "Are you two ready?" she asked coldly.

Riley nodded. "Let's go" he answered in the same tone, brushing past her out the door.

-------------------------------------------------------------

The car ride to the tarmac had been one long awkward silence. Claire had sat in the front to avoid Grant's questions, who had ended up in the back with luggage piled mercilessly around him. Claire had turned as far to the window as she could go, her back almost completely to Riley as she pretended to be immersed in a book, absorbing nothing as she dully flipped the pages. Riley was driving with a violence not seen outside the NASCAR track, going a least ten miles over the speed limit and cutting passerby's off with ruthless pleasure.

The sight of the jet seemed to bring a sigh of relief to all three parties. Grant fairly dove out of the car, running around to the back to get his suitcase from the expansive trunk that curiously was holding almost none of the luggage.

Riley's hand was on the door handle when Claire grabbed his arm. "Riley, wait." she said with a carefully controlled voice, the voice she used when negating deals with scientists from around the globe.

He turned back into the car, startled by the touch. Claire kept her hand on his arm.

"Look, we're going to have to work together for I don't know how long. This…assignment….we can't mess this up."

"I know." Riley replied tonelessly, wishing Claire would remove her hand. It was incredibly distracting.

She pursued, her hand still clamped to his elbow as if he was going to make a run for it if given half a chance. "I'm just saying that what we're doing right now-this isn't going to work. We need to be a team again, for however long this takes if we want to get Ian and Patrick back. As soon as that happens, I promise I'll come back here and you can continue to despise me."

Riley's jaw tightened, and he gave a forced nod. "Works for me."

Claire nodded back. "Okay." she said softly, then released him quickly and exited.

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Abigail Gates fiddled with the tassels on her living room couch cushion. The entire house had already been whipped into perfect cleanliness, the refrigerator stocked, Claire's guest room furnished, and with 48 hours since her son's disappearance, she had run out of things to do.

Checking out the front window for the sixth time in the past hour, she stood up and walked briskly to the library, where her husband sat pouring over a mountain of old texts.

The youth and vigor that was always shining on Benjamin Gates' face was wiped clean, leaving him looking his age for the first time in his life. Lines sprouted on his forehead where they had been lying dormant, falling down his forehead in the direction of eyebrows that seemed permanently pulled together like two magnets. He ruffled violently through hundreds of books, turning each page with a new aggression he was unable to take out on the men who took his son.

"They should be here by now." Abbie said softly as she sat across from her husband, barely able to see him over the pile of books.

"I know." Ben answered, slamming his book down on the table. "But we can't sit around doing nothing. We don't even know if Claire's home. We don't even know if she'll come."

"She will." Abbie said sincerely. "Even if it wasn't Ian as well. She knows how important this is."

A car motor roared loudly from the front of the house in concurrence of her statement. Both of them leapt from their seats, running to the door.

Riley's black car tore down the driveway, whipping into a park only feet from the lawn. Abbie and Ben watched as Riley stepped out of the car, slamming the door behind him with feeling. They both let out a sigh as Claire jumped out of the other side, her door swinging open behind her as she ran up to the house. The smile that was fighting the corners of Abbie's mouth surrendered as a third person climbed out of the backseat, shutting his door with careful politeness as if to make up for Riley's.

"Who's that?" Ben asked her as the new man and Riley walked up the driveway, keeping as far away from each other as humanly possible.

"That would be Grant." she answered with a frown. "This is going to complicate things a little."

As Claire finally reached the front steps, she and Abbie, threw their arms around each other, both holding back tears.

"Thank you." she said softly as they both stepped back.

Claire nodded and smiled slightly, wiping her eyes. "We're going to get them back." she reassured her, taking a deep breath. "It's great to see both of you again." she added, turning to hug Ben as well. "It's been a while." She looked at his face and frowned. "You look like crap."

Ben managed a genuine smile, looking loads better than he had five minutes previously. "So do you."

"It's been a crazy few hours." she agreed.

Benn looked down at his feet, shifting uncomfortably. "I'm sorry about sending…" he trailed off, shooting a look at an approaching Riley.

Claire shrugged smiling sadly. "It's fine. We needed to get it over with anyway. The gang's all here now, that's what's important."

Abigail nudged her discreetly in the shoulder. "Is that Grant?" she asked quietly.

Claire nodded.

"What's he doing here?" she asked, trying to sound as un-irritated as possible.

"He insisted on coming. You can thank Riley for that one."

Abigail winced. "How bad was it?"

Claire sighed as Riley and Grant came marching up the house steps, Grant looking like a soldier behind enemy lines and Riley looking like a thundercloud.

"Whatever you were imagining, it was worse." she muttered under her breath.

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His head was killing him.

Ian kept his eyes clamped shut, warding off any ray of sunshine that would catalyze a fresh explosion of pain inside his head. As his thought process slowly began to de-fog, he began to realize that he simply wasn't hungover, as he couldn't remember touching a beer in over a week. He'd been working with the Feds on a heist case in the Capitol, a really high-profile business with stolen files that had kept him slaving thirty hours a day. There was no way he had gotten drunk in the last twenty-four hours.

He gritted his teeth as another wave of pain rushed over his head. Even if he had gotten thoroughly skunked, alcohol would never dole him a headache this bad. This kind of thing meant only drugs. Lots of them.

Obviously, since Ian hadn't done drugs in twenty-odd years, someone else had drugged him. He wasn't duly concerned. In his past and present jobs, being drugged wasn't nearly so foreign to him as his sister would like to believe. He knew to keep his eyes closed until he assimilated his senses and began to figure out where he was.

The first thing he realized was that he was lying on a cot, which, obviously, wasn't his. The blanket was scratchy and stiff, but there were no bindings on his arms and legs. Good.

Calling on his ears, he could discern the sound of pipes around and above him. He was probably underground. But to his left, muffling the gurgle of transported water, was the sound of someone crying. Whoever they were, they were doing it discreetly, but the snuffling was beginning to become annoying to his sensitive ears.

It was then Ian opened his eyes, to tell whomever it was to kindly cry somewhere out of his hearing distance.

He opened his eyes to darkness and bare walls. There were institutional lighting strips across the ceiling, but they were mercifully turned off. In the dimness, Ian could only discern that the room was small, with concrete walls and floor and a plated door that screamed 'hostage'.

The weeping person was on the other side of the tiny room. Ian sat up slowly, one hand pressed to his inauspiciously wet forehead. Apparently drugs weren't the only thing that had knocked him out. He felt himself getting slightly irritated at his attacker's thoroughness, along with the fact that someone had actually managed to take him out. He must be getting old.

By the time he was fully up, most of the pain had receded with the dizziness, and Ian could see better.

The figure in the corner was crouched on a cot identical to his own, cured up in a ball. Ian gave an inward groan as he realized it was a kid. He was being held hostage, as he could see no other reason for his present situation, because of the FBI case, and that was probably some senator's kid.

In his past less-than-law-abiding days, Ian had learned that the cardinal rule of hostages was never to take kids. It was out of any moral misgivings of his, just that they made horrible prisoners. They whined, sniveled, were constantly hungry, always bored, never stopped talking, and usually produced loud, noisy tears like the one on the cot next to him was working towards.

Ian cursed his bad luck. This one, being most likely a politician's kid, would constantly whine and cry and be a general brat.

The child's sniffling was beginning to die down, and Ian generously decided to cut him some slack this one time, having been freshly kidnapped.

"Hey kid," he called softly across the room, "do you know where we are?"

The crying stopped immediately as the ball unfurled enough for Ian to see that it was a boy, probably five or six, with messy blonde hair.

"No." he said with a shaky voice. "I just woke up. Who're you?"

There was another thing. They were constantly asking questions. Another reason why he never saw fit to help populate the earth.

"I'm with the FBI" he said in what he thought was an assuring tone.

The boy sat up a little. "You're British."

"Yes, well spotted." he replied crossly, abandoning the reassuring tone.

"D'you know my parents?"

Yep, that settled it. He was a politician's kid.

"Probably not." he answered. "I was working a case at the Capitol. Your dad works there, yeah?"

The boys shook his head. "They study history." he said miserably, his eyes tearing up.

Ian's sluggish mind finally caught up to speed. The blonde hair had looked strangely familiar.

"You're Ben's son, aren't you?"

The boy's face lit up. "Yeah! You're Ian, right?"

Ian was flummoxed. He had met the kid, Patrick, only three times, all more than a year ago. Most of the six year olds he knew couldn't remember what they had for lunch yesterday.

"You're the only British person I've ever met." Patrick explained earnestly. "And Mom and Dad and Uncle Riley tell stories about you. Did you really blow up that boat?"

Ian blinked. Were six year olds supposed to be able to talk that fast? When Claire was six she barely spoke ten words to anybody in a week. Then again, by the time she was fifteen that hadn't changed much, so his sister wasn't exactly the best model of child development.

"Do you know why were here?"

Patrick looked like he was going to cry again. "A lady came in about an hour ago. She checked your pulse and gave me a sandwich. We have to stay here because they need my Dad to do something for them, and then we can go home."

Things were beginning to fit together. He wasn't here because of the FBI case at all, but as a hostage for his sister. He slumped down with an irritated huff.

"What's wrong?" Patrick asked with wide eyes.

Ian crossed his arms over his chest in annoyance. " If you must know, I don't think I've ever been kidnapped for something I didn't do." he said angrily. "It's beginning to piss me off."

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Thanks for reading! Coming up in Chapter Three: History riddles, Imprisonaters, and Fistfights galore! Ian has to deal with kids! Claire explains her drug-addicted ways! Tune in next week-ish!


	3. Chapter 3

Okay, so it's been a week...ish. This is, though,to make up for the wait, one of the longest chapters I've ever written. Almost 6000 words. My hands hurt just thinking about it

I still haven't replied to a lot of the second chapter reviews. Sorry. I will. It's a bit late where I am. I thought you'dlikeanupdate rathar than a review.

Another note-because of popular demand, this story (if it stays) will be Ian/Dawes. Thanks for the suggestion.

Enjoy.

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"So, what happened?"

Claire paused above her open suitcase, a pair of socks in each hand, and looked at Abigail, who was seated on her bed with an expectant grin on her face. Abbie immediately thought of a hung-over deer in the headlights.

"Abbie, if you're looking for a romantic story in which Riley sweeps back into my life and makes me fall in love with him all over again, you're going to be severely disappointed."

"Come on," Abbie pressed. "You can't tell me there weren't some dramatic moments. What did he first say to you? Did you just stare for a while, eyes _locked _across a crowded room-"

"Alright, fine." Claire huffed, scowling at her friend's exaggerated antics. "But you're not going to like some of it."

Frowning down at the pair of punk fuzzy socks in her hand, Claire began in a tone that suggested she was reading a particularly dry blender manual. "Riley came while I was at work this morning. No, our eyes did not 'lock across a crowded room.' He strolled into my office; without an appointment, if you really need something to dramatize. Grant was there as well. I dealt with that situation masterfully, as you could imagine, by gaping first and saying something insulting second. Riley informed Grant of our previous premarital relationship, and Grant in turn exchanged his present social status with me. Of course, Riley said something even more insulting, Grant almost punched him, I had to step in, and then Riley chose that moment to tell me about Patrick and Ian." She rubbed the bridge of her nose wearily. "Are you sure you want me to go on?"

"By all means."

"Well, I immediately went to my house with Riley to get my things, Grant insisted on coming along, as you probably guessed, so I drove with Riley. There was some less-than-sparkling conversation, take my word for it, and then we went to my house, where Riley, poking around my things, managed to find my sleeping medication-"

"Your what?"

"-We'll discuss that later, let me finish. So Riley threw a complete fit, dumped all my pills into the toilet, and has pretty much refused to speak to me since, making out four hour airplane ride here particularly pleasant four hours." Claire sighed. "So, did it live up to your expectations?"

"Your narration skills could use some work. I bet it was twice as dramatic as you made it sound; you two couldn't stay in a room with each other for five minutes without turning into some kind of backstory from Days of Our Lives."

Claire made a face, but Abbie had already moved on.

"So what were you talking about, sleeping medication? You never mentioned anything like that in the letters."

Claire crossed the room to sit next to her friend, leaning back on the array of decorative pillows. Abbie was just as upset as Riley, but she reacted differently, coaxing an explanation instead of turning into The Hulk. It was the result of years working for the Government and repressing the urge to wring beurocrat's necks.

"After I left DC to work for the Institute, I started getting really bad nightmares."

"About what?"

Claire sunk deeper into the mountain of pillows. "Robinson." she said softly, her voice muffled by fringe. "I had this one where I was in the cave with Robinson's body, but I was in my pajamas, and I had blood all over my hands. Whenever I tried to wipe it off onto my clothes, it would just spread across them, but it would never some off my hands, like there was some kind of nonstop flow from my fingertips. Then I would look over and Robinson's body turned into Riley's and I realized there was a gun at my feet. Then you and Ben and Ian and Patrick would all rush in and see Riley and look at me, and I opened my mouth to tell you I didn't do it, but I couldn't talk. Everyone just kept looking at my hands in horror and the blood wouldn't come off." She paused, wearily calm. "After I had that one for a week, I went to the doctor; He told me I had PTSD."

Abigail frowned. "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder? But Robinson was years ago!"

Claire nodded. "Apparently I was supposed to get it directly afterward, but I repressed it and it just kind of lay there until I responded to some kind of stimulus, something that would get me really upset or stressed." She shot a meaningful look at Abbie. "You can guess what that was."

Abbie nodded. "Okay, that I understand. But why were there so many of them? Sleeping pills. I mean."

Claire winced. "The sleeping pills couldn't fully bock all my dreams, not on a standard dosage. The long, dragging nightmares were gone, but I'd see little flashes that woke me up, kind of like that feeling that you're falling, except visual." Claire narrated with almost clinical detachness. "My REM cycles couldn't function with such periodic disturbances, so I was driven to the point of exhaustion and hysteria during the day. Eventually, I knew I was going to have to go beyond the recommended dosage or get some sort of serious psychiatric therapy."

Abbie had an arm around her shoulder, her face concerned. "Why didn't you get help?"

Claire snorted. "A shrink? Who would believe me? 'Well, sir, I'm suffering from PTSD because I sacrificed my former professor in some sort of Aztec blood ritual in order to bring my future fiancé back from the dead.' That would get me medication, sure, but not exactly the kind I was looking for. So I went to another doctor for another standard prescription and things sort of evolved from there. I was able to sleep dreamlessly of my self-upped dosage, and have an uninterrupted, normal life, where I didn't have to think about what I'd done every few minutes. Then Grant came along and he was handsome and sweet and waited, like, four months for me to agree to go out on one date with him, and I thought 'Why not? If I'm really going to do this normal life thing properly, I might as well just go out with a guy. The drugs seemed a small price to pay."

A silence settled over the room. Abbie chewed on her lip, slightly disturbed. "I think you should have gone with the therapy."

Claire groaned. "Oh, come one Abbie, not everyone's love lives can be as Disney-esque as yours."

"Thank God." Abbie said dryly. "Otherwise priceless historical artifacts would be stolen with depressing regularity."

"I'm serious! Not everyone has some dashing treasure hunter save her from the clutches of my evil brother, bring her along on some whirlwind adventure to uncover the largest treasure in humanity and propose to her seven months later!"

Abbie raised an eyebrow. "If I remember correctly, Riley brought you along on a treasure hunt despite connection to said evil brother, saved you from drowning from some freak Bermuda Triangle storm despite the fact that you hated him t the time, punched in a window for you, got himself shot to death, literally, because he refused to leave you with your evil professor, and proposed to you six months later!" she finished triumphantly. "And by the way, I'm telling Ben you called him 'dashing'."

Claire laughed. It felt good. "Go ahead," she teased, "And while you're at it, tell him that if he ever comes to his senses, I'm available."

Abbie threw a pillow at her, pleased at the change from the previously somber mood. "Get your own husband!"

Claire sputtered as the chenille missile hit her square in the face. "We can't share? I Bet Ben doesn't get into fistfights with your colleagues."

Abbie leaned back, smiling nostalgically. "Only one."

"Ben punched one of your colleagues? Who?"

Abigail chuckled. "This guy named Stan. He wouldn't leave me alone and kept on sending me flowers."

Claire gasped. "Stan?!? Stan the Stiff?"

Abbie looked at her in amazement. "How do you know him?"

"Riley told me a few stories. Please, Continue!!"

"Well, one day when Ben came by the office to see me, Stan started pestering me about how Ben clearly wasn't good enough for me, and how it wasn't professional to be dating someone who had stolen from our workplace. Ben turned around and _pow!_ Just knocked his lights out." She smiled dreamily. "It was a beautiful moment."

Laughter bubbled up in Claire's throat again, making up for its lengthy absence. She shook in side-splitting peals, abruptly stopping when she accidentally rolled off the bed and landed ungracefully on the floor. Abbie exploded in laughter as soon as she reached the ground, setting Claire off again.

It was a cherished moment, a short time when the two friends could forget the troubling present, forget their kidnapped sons and brothers, forget Claire's dangerous drug dependence, and revel in their reunion.

Ben and Riley could hear their laughter down in the library. Neither of them was feeling quite as cheery. Ben had just escorted Grant to another guest room in the farthest wing of the house, forcing himself to be a polite host, despite his urge to send him packing on the next flight back to Nassau. Riley was like a brother to him, and he'd hoped that the silver lining of their predicament would be that Claire and Riley would reconcile. Obviously, that wasn't going to happen now.

"What do you think they're laughing at?" Riley asked gloomily, resting his chin on his hands as they sat by their research table, already weighed down by books.

"You, probably." Ben replied sympathetically.

Riley shifted uncomfortably. "Fantastic."

Ben set down a textbook had been flipping absently through. "So… how'd it go?"

"She's taking sleeping pills."

"Excuse me?"

"That's what I said…. with a few more expletives. She has a whole cabinet full. I found them."

"Does the boyfriend have anything to do with this?" Ben asked angrily.

"No, he was just as surprised as I was." Riley responded bitterly, half wishing that the ponce had known about it, to give him a reason to pick a fight.

Ben slammed his book closed with feeling. "I can't believe she would be so irresponsible!"

On a different day, Riley would have reminded Ben that a long time ago, "irresponsibility had been his middle name, but at the time, agreed in whole.

"What did you do?" Ben asked him.

Riley winced. "I got angry."

Ben nodded slightly. "Understandable. You did get rid of the pills, yeah?"

"Down the toilet."

Ben raised an eyebrow "A tad melodramatic, Riley."

Riley sighed, slumping further down into the table. "I know, I overreacted, I should have just sat her down and demanded an explanation, but I was just so….."

"Scared" Ben offered sympathetically.

Riley nodded wearily. "Terrified. She could have killed herself, Ben. She had enough pills to knock out an elephant. I just looked at that cabinet and was more petrified than I've been in a long time."

Another gloomy silence stretched over the library, punctuated by a whisper of pages as Ben thumbed through another book, pretending to read as he contemplated the new turn of events. Riley simply traced a finger over the engraved letters on the giant tome before him, a lost look on his face.

"Why?" Ben asked abruptly, breaking the silence.

"Huh?" Riley asked absently, jerked out of a daydream that involved Grant's neck and a pair of hedge clippers.

"Why do you think she took them?"

Riley honestly hadn't given the "why" much thought. "Nancy boy's probably giving her a headache," he muttered under his breath.

"What did you say?"

"Me? Nothing."

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An hour later, all four sat around the library table, the bookstacks moved to the floor around them to increase visibility.

Grant sat in the corner of the library, by the floor-to-ceiling windows, pretending to read a book he'd picked from random out of the Gate's library. He hadn't turned from the first page, too absorbed in the process being played out in front of him.

A biologist to the core, Grant noticed every detail of the four's interaction that seemed its own tradition; the seating arrangement, for example, with Ben and Abigail on one side and Claire and Riley on the other, clearly set in stone years before despite the present discomfort. The way that Claire and the Gates seemed to recognize each book on the table by touch, as if sorting through old memories, wordlessly passing and stacking the texts between the three of them in no discernable order. Riley, on the other hand, dominated the two square feet of table space that was completely paper-free, a wafer-thin laptop surrounded by a rainbow of wires swooping around on all sides and connecting to intimidating metal catches.

They all seemed to finish their preparatory ritual at the exact same moment, Riley's computer gurgling a welcome tune as the other three placed their last book on piles hat reached over their heads.

Claire planted her elbows on the table, resting her chin on interlaced fingers. 'Okay, bring me up to speed."

All eyes turned to Ben, who began. "Pat went missing during a school field trip to the Capitol." He nodded malevolently at a crumpled piece of paper the side of a large index card, lying in its own quarantine at the center of the table. "That showed up at our door twelve hours later."

Claire glanced at the card, surprised not to see a straightforward message, but two stanzas of a poem.

"Poetry?" she asked, captivated, reaching for the paper. "For a ransom demand?"

"Not poetry." Ben corrected. "A riddle."

Claire poured over the card, reading the lines softly aloud. The message in her voice sent a chill down Riley's spine.

"_Seek not, good friends, what has been lost_

_No harm will come to them of yet_

_But even Liberty requires a cost_

_to receive alive what you beget_

_Treville's great four return in whole_

_to meet at Paine's now ghostly tree_

_to seek a mandatory goal_

_and find a most unusual key"_

Claire grimaced. "It's not very good, is it? Not even grammatically correct. It should be 'to retrieve alive what you've _begotten_', not _beget_. And the rhyming scheme changes halfway through."

Riley groaned. "Great idea, Claire. _You_ teach the kidnappers how to write poetry, and _we'll_ work on that whole rescuing thing."

Claire studiously ignored him. "Ben, riddles are more your territory than mine. The first verse is more or less straightforward- 'don't look for your son, we haven't hurt him, but you have to do what we say or we'll kill him.' But I can't make sense of the second one."

Ben smiled his "I know exactly what this means and I'm about to tell you in the most dramatic way possible" smile. "Well, it took me a few minutes to figure out the first line."

Claire stared at the line. "Treville's great four return in whole,' Well…great four…that would be us, right?"

Bed nodded, watching the cogs in her mind work.

"Well, Treville….it sounds so familiar. French…"Claire trailed off. "It wasn't in any of my textbooks."

Ben gave his omniscient grin again. "That's because he doesn't exist."

After three seconds of staring, Claire's eyes widened and she smacked herself in the forehead. "Of course! How could I have been so stupid?"

"It's easy to overlook, really" Ben reassured her.

Riley scowled at the beatific look on the other three's faces, hating being a step behind. "Can I interrupt the historical mind meld to ask who this guy is?"

"Monsieur de Treville," Claire gushed, "was the captain of the Louis IV's musketeers."

Ben, Abigail and Claire stared expectantly at him as it slowly dawned. "Oh, right. Because of the press. Ridiculous, if you ask me."

Grant, who had been following the proceedings behind his book, couldn't stop a questioning "Hmm?" from escaping his lips.

Riley glowered at him. "Did you say something?"

Claire sighed. "The press used to call us 'The Musketeers' because of our work uncovering the nation's lost treasures without monetary gain. Well," she amended, with an embarrassed smile on her face, "not usually."

After pressing a few buttons, Riley twisted around his laptop so Grant could see the screen, an old CNN headline; "Musketeers Strike Again; Roanoke Colony Uncovered" was emblazoned across the top in capital letters along with a three-year old picture of the foursome.

Grant frowned. "But there are four of you. I thought there were only three musketeers."

Riley smiled smugly, positive that Claire would tell him off. After Treasure Island, The Three Musketeers was one of her favorite books.

But Claire simply shook her head. "The title is misleading," she explained patiently. "There were actually four musketeers. After the media started using the nickname, we started using the musketeer's names as our new code names. Our old ones were terrible anyway."(Riley scowled sullenly.)

"Ben is Athos-the eldest and the unofficial leader. Abbie is Aramis-the good-looking, levelheaded one, and Riley is Porthos, the pompous one."

Grant nodded. "And who're you?"

"d'Artagnan, of course. The youngest, and the newcomer."

Riley slouched in his chair, annoyed. If he'd admitted aloud that he'd never read The Three Musketeers (which he hadn't), he'd never hear the end of it. But _Grant_ was _special_, of course. She doesn't get mad at her _precious Biologist_. Who cares if he was clearly illiterate?

"Alright, we have that line down." Ben said, breaking the silence. "The next few parts haven't been as easy."

Claire squinted at the last stanza "To meet at pain's now ghostly tree; to seek a mandatory goal, and find a most unusual key.' Well, I have no idea what pain's now ghostly tree is, but I guess we have to meet there. What do they mean, mandatory goal?"

"Their official ransom demand." Abbie offered. "That is, whatever they want us to do to get Pat and Ian back alive."

"And the unusual key...well, that could be either a literal key, or the key to getting Pat back, figuratively." Ben mused.

Claire sat back in her seat. "So the key, pardon the pun, to solving the riddle is this pain's tree reference, What did the FBI think of it?"

Abbie, Ben and Riley shifted uncomfortably in their seats. Claire looked from face to face, waiting for an answer. There was silence. She groaned, turning to Grant.

"Grant, could you go get me a drink, please? I'm getting a headache."

Grant thought about refusing. Claire obviously didn't have a headache, but it would be rude to keep her from having a private conversation with her old friends.

"Really, Grant." Claire persuaded through gritted teeth. "The less you hear, the less you'll be forced to testify about."

Reluctantly, he nodded, rising from his chair and heading slowly towards the kitchen.

As soon as the door was shut behind him Claire whipped around, glaring incredulously. "I cannot _believe_ you three! You didn't show this to the FBI?"

Ben winced. "Well, we don't exactly have the most amazing track record together."

"So you obstruct justice?"

Riley scowled. "It wasn't your decision to make, Claire."

"Hey, my brother's life is on the line here too!" she said angrily. "Now, tomorrow, we're going to call up agent Dawes and show her this. We can trust her, she works with Ian."

Riley snorted. "That's what we call an _oxymoron_. Like jumbo shrimp."

Claire cut off whatever insult she was about to throw at her ex fiancé when Grant walked tentatively back into the room, a glass of water in her hands. "Everything alright?"

"Yes." she said quickly. "We were just getting to work on that tree line."

The other three followed her lead, shuffling papers around importantly and clearing their throats. Grant retreated back to his window, taking the water with him. Claire didn't notice.

For the next three hours, he witnessed the four of them interlocked in their own private world, communicating in their own language of complicated phrases as they each dominated their own realm of practice in unlocking the mystery in those four words.

Anyone else would have been bored. Grant was not. He'd never seen any group of people work this smoothly, not in all his years of field research. They seemed to pick up just as they were two years previous. After an hour, Grant started to perceive exactly how the four functioned.

Ben was the theorist. He only skimmed the pages of his books, pulling out a few words and forming ideas, most of which seemed ludicrous until he spouted an ocean of knowledge backing it up. Using his hands to illustrate his theories, he painted dozens of scenarios that Grant caught himself nodding along to more than once.

Next to him, Abbie's job was shooting his theories down. The only one of the four that could match him in memorized historical information, she would break in just when Ben seemed to have it pieced together, breaking apart his idea with a well-placed dissent, an almost devilish smile on her beautiful features when she shut him down cold.

Claire was the cryptologist. She made sense of Ben's outlandish theories and cut down historical mysteries and riddles in a matter of seconds, pouring through her books in almost religious devotion.

Grant turned his attention to Riley last, his scientific curiosity overcoming his dislike for the man. Riley, unlike the others, kept his hands clean of any history, knowing that he couldn't match them. Instead, he worked only in the present, bringing the theories into the 21st century. When a name was mentioned, Riley could tell you who he was, where he was, and whether or not he could be suspect in a matter of seconds. When a building was mentioned, his fingers flew over his onyx keys until the blueprints were shining on his screen. Grant was almost impressed, in spite of himself.

As the darkness outside began to seep in, and the old-fashioned lamps on either end of the table became the only pools of light in the room, Ben eventually halted mid-sentence. "Let's stop here. We all need a good night's sleep."

Claire looked down, flushing as she felt everyone in the room give her a sidelong glance.

They all stood up, leaving the table exactly as it was for tomorrow morning.

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Four hours later, Claire sat sideways across the couch in the living room, head massaging an aching head. She'd tried to go to sleep, she really had. In her pitch black room, she'd tossed and turned on top of her mattress, exhausted body trying to reason with a resilient mind. But every time she felt herself about to slip into peaceful oblivion, she could feel the tendrils of a dream beginning to creep into her subconscious, and before the pieces solidified to the picture of a dark underground chamber, she would jolt out of her stupor, sweating.

Eventually, she'd given up and retreated downstairs, padding through the halls with practiced ease even in the middle of the night. She'd made herself a steaming cup of hot chocolate and relaxed, or at least tried to.

Footsteps echoed quietly down the spiral staircase in the foyer. Claire turned to see a dark figure shuffle down the hall past her into the kitchen. She yawned, getting up to follow

whoever it was. The figure reached up to one of the cabinets to retrieve another packet of hot chocolate mix and ceramic mug. Claire recognized the blue plaid bathrobe.

"Riley?" she asked sleepily, "What're you doing up?"

The figure jumped about three feet in the air and dropped his mug on the floor with a loud crash. Claire flinched.

"Jeez, Claire!" Riley hissed, "Don't sneak up on me like that!"

"I wasn't," she protested sleepily, to tired to get annoyed. "I just wanted to see who was in the kitchen."

"Why are you down here?"

She yawned again. "I couldn't sleep."

Riley looked down at the floor, concern and a bit of guilt etched in his features. "Oh. I just wanted some hot chocolate."

Nodding, Claire turned and shuffled back into the living room. Riley followed, sitting on the opposite couch and propping his feet on the coffee table between them. There was a silence, too late to be uncomfortable and too awkward to be comfortable.

"Tree," Claire said suddenly, pulling her feet beneath her.

Riley moaned. "Not now. I'm half asleep." Back in the day when they used to work together, he and Claire would play word association games to help crack codes. It didn't always work to find an answer, but it did drive Ben up a wall, which was almost nearly as good.

Claire glared at him resiliently. "Tree."

Riley grumbled inaudibly under his breath for several minutes. "Spring" he finally relented.

"Flowers"

"Dirt"

"Worms"

Claire made a face. "Asphalt"

"Basketball"

"Hoop"

"Fruit Loops"

"What?"

"It rhymes"

Claire shrugged. "Okay, we're not getting anywhere. Let's try 'pain'"

"Blood"

"Type"

"A Positive"

She snickered. "Remember that time when we went to give blood and you fainted?"

Riley sat upright, indignant. "I didn't faint, I was just anemic!" he protested.

"You had to lie down," Claire giggled. "The Nurse gave you a lollipop."

Riley smiled dreamily. "I remember her. She was hot."

He promptly received the popular pillow-to-the-face treatment. "Stop changing the subject. Keep your mind of the game."

"It was your turn!" Riley huffed.

"Okay, right. Hmmmm. Grades."

"Grades?"

"A Positive is like A plus."

"You were a grade-grubber in school, weren't you?." Riley asked wryly.

"Didn't have to. I never got below a ninety-five on anything."

"I hated kids like that."

The game went on in this vein for hours, never producing a breakthrough, but entertaining the restless two for hours, until the sun began to creep across the floor and one fell asleep, smiling beatifically, while the other watched him and rubbed her tired eyes.

-------------------------------------------

By morning, Claire felt more haggard than any other all-nighter she had pulled in college. She was positive, as she sat sprawled in a kitchen chair, that if she blinked for too long she would nod off right into her cereal. She lifted a fork that felt like a ten-pound weight, halfheartedly plunging it into her milk and fishing around drunkenly for some Cheerios.

Riley sat across the table from her, a newspaper pulled up in front of his face to avoid confrontation. They'd managed to forget that they didn't get along last night as Riley helped her pass the sleepless hours, but it was clear that he was going right back to antagonizing her now that they were living with the rest of the world in waking hours. She glanced over at the newspaper he was reading. The New York Times Business section. Possibly the most boring text ever to be printed.

_How can he read that so early??_ Claire pondered, staring at the front page in amazement, squinting to read the tiny print. _It's like reading a dictionary_.

"Don't you have _anything_ else to read?" she blurted out, her comment-inhibiting sense washed away by sleep deprivation. "Like, an encyclopedia? Or a toaster manual?"

Riley shot her a deadly glare from across the top of the page.

"Oh, I see," she continued, her mouth running away from a feebly protesting brain. "Look, unless you're actually _enthralled_ in the business section, which I doubt, I can save you the trouble and just build a Berlin Wall across the kitchen table."

For a split second she thought Riley was going to laugh. The corners of his mouth were tightly curved ever so slightly upwards. Then Grant walked in, and the smile was annihilated.

"Good morning," he said genially, obviously fresh as a daisy and oblivious to the tension being radiated across the poor table. Claire almost slugged him on principle. As it turned out, she didn't have to.

Smiling, he reached down to give Claire a kiss good morning. She stopped him with a hand to the shoulder and a quick shake of her head. She wasn't going to tiptoe around Riley, but she wasn't cruel enough to kiss her new boyfriend in front of him either. Riley's face was hidden by the business section, but a newspaper crinkle was audible as his grip tightened.

For a minute Grant almost looked angry. When Claire thought it over later, he had a pretty good right to be. As soon as Riley had strolled into her office, he'd been shoved on the back burner and ignored.

With a slightly rebellious look in his eyes, he ignored Claire's warning and continued his downward descent to kiss her, a little more deeply than was probably necessary. An indignant Claire was about to push him away and give him a stern talking-to about personal space when someone else's hand landed on his shoulder and his mouth was ripped from hers and instead introduced to Riley's fist. That was when hell broke loose.

--------------------------------------

Meanwhile, Agent Katharine Dawes was crouched on the dark maple floorboards of Senator Granger's office, having scoured the expansive room the fourth time for any sign of a break-in. There was nothing, which largely contradicted the absence of top-secret files in the Senator's locked desk drawer.

"This is pointless," she sighed to herself, resting her forearms on her thighs in exhaustion. She wasn't going to succeed in finding anything of importance now; not after four other agents, a forensics team and a highly trained theft consultant had failed. But it didn't seem right for her to be slurping Lo Mien takeout in her apartment after her highly trained theft consultant had been snatched from her as effortlessly as these files.

The memory of Howe's disappearance playing a loop in her head, she grimly began her circle around the room again, searching every inch of floorboard, every centimeter of wallpaper, every window, every piece of furniture. Ian had barely been in the room ten minutes before he left to check the office above this one.

"It's possible that the intruder broke into the office above and managed to rappel from the windows into this office." he explained when faced with her incredulous expression. "It's what I would do…er, would've done." She'd rolled her eyes at his constant need to affirm that he was on the straight track and sent him up to the office unaccompanied. _Stupid_, she berated herself.

He hadn't come back.

When she'd gone over the security tapes, Ian had been shown entering the office, using his FBI clearance card to gain access. He'd never come out. Only a tiny fleck of his blood on the carpet attested to his ever being in the room.

Dawes finally clambered up to her feet, muscles groaning, and collapsed in the Senator's desk chair. She was overworking herself and she knew it. And it was for reasons she couldn't quite admit. Sure, she could reason that she was sitting here at ungodly hours of the night looking for a clue to her consultant's kidnapper because she felt guilty for letting him out of her sight. That was certainly what all her agent's believed, giving her uncharacteristic pats on the shoulder as they departed home hours ago. But really, she didn't feel too guilty about that. There had been no reason to believe that hostiles were still present in the building, and Ian probably would've refused an FBI escort anyways. He hated almost everyone she worked with, which was probably why they were thought of as more partners than agent and consultant. Howe had an annoying habit of refusing to listen to anyone else.

No, she was overworking this case, a case that had held little emotional pull to her until her consultant had been kidnapped, because she realized that she was beginning to develop an unhealthy attachment to said consultant.

Over the last three years that they've worked together, they had managed to get over mutual dislike of each other, placing professional work before personal preference. Eventually Howe had started to respect her opinion and actually listen to theories besides his own, and she in turn had stopped needling him about his promise to the FBI to stay aboveboard.

Sometime after this, they'd become almost friends. After hundreds of cases worked together, they couldn't help but share some sort of cadence, a bond through dry humor and mutual workaholic tendencies. She worked almost all of her security cases with him, and he rarely worked with any other agents. No one complained; together they had an impressive solve rate that was incomparable to any others, and were now viewed as some sort of package deal.

Dawes couldn't pinpoint when exactly she'd calling him for advice on cases he wasn't even assigned to, or when they'd start talking about non-work-related things, or when she could read his face so easily that she knew when he was worrying about his little sister again. He brought her coffee on Tuesdays, when she tended to be the most stressed, and she knew not to contact him on Sunday nights when England premiere was playing.

The point was, she concluded, that she was more upset about his disappearance than she should be.

The door to the senator's study creaked open. Dawes spun on the padded swivel chain in surprise.

An elegant man in his fifties with thick grey hair and an impressively tailored suit stepped in.

"Oh, good evening, Agent Dawes. I didn't realize you were here."

Dawes sprung out of the chair guiltily. "Good evening, Senator. I'm sorry for intruding."

"Not at all." Senator Granger said kindly. "It's heartening to see such work ethic in the Bureau."

Dawes smiled. Senator Granger had been magnificent throughout this entire ordeal, surrendering his office and his privacy to the FBI for almost two weeks now. Despite her disdain of politicians, (another thing she and Howe had in common) Granger had a certain fatherly affability that had drawn the respect and love of the entire country, and was a strong presidential hopeful for next year. Dawes knew she would certainly vote for him.

"Despite your admirable dedication, Miss Dawes, you look like you could use some sleep. You should go home; if your boss gives you trouble, tell him to call me."

Dawes nodded, repressing a yawn as she headed for the door. "Thank you, sir. Good night."

"And Miss Dawes?"

"Yes?"

Granger gave her another kindly smile. "I'm sorry about your missing man."

She nodded, tired face betraying more worry that she would've liked. "Thank you, sir."

As she started down the richly carpeted hall, Dawes missed the guilt that passed over the Senator's features as stared out of his window onto the dark Capitol grounds.

-----------------------------------------

Okay, this is my last chapter as the Trial-Sequel. So...does it stay? Does it go? Do I spend valuble time doing historical reaserch or not? You tell me! Please! By telling me I obviously mean REVIEWING! It's my one true love.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N**- Hi guys! Heh, so let's pretend it hasn't been about a year since I updated…..Merry Christmas? Hey, at least we all had NT2. I went with low expectations and was pleasantly surprised. Yes, they didn't explain ANY of their methods, Helen Mirren was criminally underused, and Ian wasn't in it (mark of death from the start) but Ben in Buckingham Palace made me laugh, and I usually just sneer at Ben and wish the movie had been about Ian instead. Nicholas Cage clearly had fun with this one.

BY THE WAY, speaking of the second movie, I had the shock of my life when they were in Cibola and there was this GIANT ALTAR and Helen Mirren goes "oh yeah, that's where they made sacrifices." I was staring at the screen with my mouth wide open until my friend turns to me and goes "Honey, that wasn't a shoutout. The nice writers at Disney haven't read your fic."

But I can dream, can't I?

Anyway, enjoy, blah blah blah, review or I'll make you wait TWO years for the next chapter. Hah

And Justin Bartha in a suit-vest? Hot. HotHotHot.

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**Fate of Fortune, Price of Glory-Chapter Four**

In all fairness, Grant hadn't been expecting it. Why would he, when Riley was easily two inches shorter and fifteen pounds lighter than him. In a fair situation, he would have twisted the techno geek like a pretzel.

It was a testament to Grant's naivety of the situation that he ever expected Riley Poole to play fair. He never got up from the first blow.

The first punch sent him reeling into the rose marble cabinets, back colliding painfully with the countertops. Riley, staggering slightly from the follow-up of his amateur blow, didn't bother giving Grant a chance to recuperate. The second punch snapped his head back as a spurt of blood spat upon the counter.

Luckily, the sight of blood caused Riley to retreat a few steps. You didn't have to be a genius to see that Grant's nose was broken and Riley was, in fact, a genius. The commencement of his Rocky Balboa impression might have also had something to do with his right hand, which he was shaking with obvious pain etched on his face.

Claire, who had been standing rather uselessly on the other side of the breakfast table determined that it wwas safe to involve herself in the dispute without catching an accidental right hook to the face.

"That's quite enough," she snapped, striding between them before Riley decided to finish the job or, God forbid, Grant recover enough to pummel him. "I don't know what's gotten into either of you. Grant, tilt you head back, I'll get some napkins, you need a doctor. Riley, just get out of my-"

She stopped while turning to glare at him, realizing he was already gone. "-sight." she finished weakly.

Grant waved away her tentative attempts to mop the blood off his face. "I can do it, I've gotten my nose broken before," he said, his voice phlemy and defensive. "Stupid punter caught me by surprise, I could have kicked his ass in a fair fight."

Claire felt a pang as Grant called Riley a punter, which was Ian's official name for her ex-fiancé.

"I don't know," she said doubtfully, forgetting all the lessons in tact she ever learned from Abbie. "Normally he has the unfortunate propensity to say the wrong thing and get pummeled, but when he gets really mad I've never seen him lose a fight. I asked him about it once, and he said something about being Irish, but I don't understand how genetics-"

"Look, Claire," Grant interrupted, "No offense, but I really don't care about Muhammad Ali's life story. Now where should I go to get this fixed?"

It was unusually snappy for Grant; his nose must have really been hurting him. The Abbie-voice in Claire's head berated her for improper girlfriend conduct; she should have agreed with everything he said to lessen the blow of Riley beating the snot out of him. She had a sinking feeling that she had made everything worse.

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After three years in a state penitentiary staring at a blank cement wall and wallowing in the consequences of his actions, Ina Howe never thought he would act on homicidal impulses ever again.

He was coming close. Very, very, close.

"Hey Mr. Howe?" a voice chirped for the fifth time in the last fifteen minutes. "Wat'cha Doin?"

He mashed his palms against his forehead, trying to avoid the blood-smeared bruise. "Trying to ward off a concussion."

"What's a concussion?"

"The result of being hit over the head with a pipe."

"Didn't somebody do that to you?"

"Yes."

The light-haired boy looked up seriously at him. "I guess you have one, then."

"Kid, don't let your dad talk you into history; you were obviously meant for the medical profession."

As planned, Patrick fell silent at the mention of his father. Ian closed his eyes and smiled at the silence, trying not to feel one iota of guilt. He could get out of this; really, he could. All he needed was some silent contemplation. He'd gotten out of trickier situations as a "businessman". Then again, in his glory days he hadn't been hampered by a concussion. And a six-year-old.

What he needed were the parameters of what had occurred; once the basics were set down, he could get to work on who exactly was keeping him here as some kind of…bargaining chip for his baby sister. He cringed as much as his head would let him. It was all just a little embarrassing.

Ian tried to sit up, and when he received a fantastic fireworks display behind his eyes for the trouble, he relented and settled for a semi-recumbent lean against the corner of the cement wall. Normally when he analyzed data he had Dawes to write things down for him.

Oh no.

Dawes. He'd completely forgotten.

She was the only one who'd known where he was, one floor above the safety of the FBI. What if she'd come looking for him?

"Patrick," he demanded. "When I was brought in here, did you see anyone else? A woman?"

The boy shook his head solemnly. "No. But I was still sleepy from the chlorophyll."

"That _what_?"

Patrick shrugged. "The chlorophyll. Uncle Riley told me about it once. It's that stuff they hold to your face to make you fall asleep. That's what they did to me when I was in the bathroom."

Ian groaned. His sister sure did know how to pick 'em. Chlorophyll. Honestly.

"It's chloroform, kid," he corrected before the second part of the sentence hit him. "Wait a minute, you were in a bathroom when the attacked you? A bathroom where?"

"Th' Capitol. I was on a trip with my class." Patrick looked down ashamedly. 'They told us to go to the bathroom in pairs, but I didn't think I needed one."

Ian was deaf to the child's admission. This new piece of information disturbed him, more than the bruise on his head, more than the straggling drugs in his system.

What kind of kidnapper attacked his victims at the country's Capitol?

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Claire stormed into the den, cheeks red in indignation. How dare he? Who the hell did he think he was, attacking her boyfriend at the drop of a hat!

The analytical side of her brain pointed out that she had been about to do the same thing, if perhaps less extremely, to Grant for kissing her in front of Riley without her permission. The same side continued smugly that it wasn't exactly a testament to her relationship with Grant if he had to ask her for permission every time he kissed her, was it?

Unfortunately, Claire wasn't paying any particular attention to the analytical side of her mind. As she strode through the wooden doorway, she was too busy formulating an opening round to what would be a grueling argument of insults. She needed something cold, yet searing, haughty, yet aware that she held the moral high ground…

Rounding into the center of the room, head held high in outrage, mouth opened to execute a perfectly planned offense, Claire stopped cold, dumbfounded at the immobile figure on the sofa.

Riley was sprawled on his back in the same leather loveseat that he had slept in across from her last night, one leg dangling over the side, bare foot brushing the rug. His right hand was cradled on his chest, knuckles purple and slightly smeared with blood. His head was buried in the overstuffed cushions, exhalations blowing the hair hanging over his eyes.

He was sound asleep.

Claire's hands reached out, strangling air of the imaginary neck in front of her. "Riley," she said, her voice deceptively calm, "You are faking. I know you're faking so you don't have to talk to me, but by God you are going to stop it right now or I will make sure that sleep becomes permanent."

Riley didn't move. His breath remained calm and steady.

"For goodness sake, how old are you? Nine? That's about the age that the sleeping trick wears off."

Nothing.

"Look, we need to be adults and face the situation. I realize how difficult that might be for you, but that's how the over-eighteens handle it these days. The facts are that you punched my boyfriend without serious provocation, and that points to problems between us."

Nothing.

Claire threw up her hand in frusteration. He was asleep. He was actually asleep. Now, of all times. The infuriating man had strolled into the kitchen barely a half-hour ago, mauled her boyfriend, stormed out of the den and what? Said "well, today's work's done, might as well take a nap"? The cheek!

"Fine!" she snapped. "Take a nap to avoid your problems. You can't sleep forever! And when you do wake up, I'm going to be right here."

Planting herself on the adjacent counch, legs and arms crossed in indignation, Claire fixed her furious gaze directly into Riley's closed eyes and sat.

And sat.

Thirty minutes later, Claire was slounched over, elbows sliding down to her knees. She supposed it was her fault for keeping him up all night, but honestly, how long did he intend to sleep?

Eventually, she lost her focus, her eyes leaving Riley's lids and meandering along the rest of his face. His incredibly long eyelashes that she teased as girly to his face but secretly thought were sexy, his nose, cheeks, eyes, chin; the stubble around his mouth and down his neck indicating his lack of maintenece for the last few hours framed that ridiculous goatee that she never let him shave. She finally arrived at his mouth, her second favorite paart of his face, but the main attraction for the present, as his eyes weren't on display.

It was a pretty ordinary mouth, as they went; Claire had never spent any time examining the physiology of men's mouth unless they were deformed or punctured with those digusting piercings available nowadays. Riley's mouth was pink-ish, and mouth-shaped; nothing special, really, but what captivated her attention were the memories of what he had done with it.

Riley was an amazing kisser, she thought grudgingly. There was no denying that. She'd naver told him exactly how good he was; his head was swelled enough as it was, but she had a feeling he knew. She smiled, remembering how he used to kiss her when she least expected it, grabbing her in the middle of a historical lecture he hadn't been listening to a word of or, even more frequently, when she was angry at him.

God, she missed kissing him.

Maybe it was the fact that this was the longest stretch of time she'd been able to observe him without being snapped at or insulted, or more likely the fact that she hadn't slapt in more than 24 hours, but Claire was suddenly gripped with a dangerous urge to lean over and kiss him. Just once.

If he really was asleep, which was becoming more and more likely, then unless the kiss was accompanied by a fully outfitted marching band, a foghorn, and the dropping of several atomic bombs, there was no way he would wake up.

Tentatively, Claire leaned over from the tip of her counch, gently planting a hand on the armrest next to his head. Behind her, unseen, Riley's bloody hand twitched.

Claire had stolen ice cream from the kitchen as a child; the maid diverted, cleaning up another one of Ian's late adolescent messes of smashed vases and broken windows. She was never caught, because she always only took one spoonful; In, out, no one ever noticed.

She glanced at the den door, half expecting to see Abbie or Ben standing there, wondering what on earth she was doing. But Ben had gone upstairs, after descending to inquire after the ruckus in his kitchen and smiling in a "that's-my-boy" kind of way after learning about the fight. Abbie hadn't even woken up yet.

She edged closer, Riley's breath now blowing in her face. Ten seconds. That was all she would take. No one would be any the wiser.

Millimeter by millimeter, Claire's mouth drifted down, eyes closing and mouth opening slightly as they brushed Riley's.

_One_, she thought, withdrawing slightly before kissing him again, just as lightly, her head tilting to one side to prevent bumping noses. _Two._

It was odd, kissing a sleeping person; his lips were not quite on status with inanimate objects, but it felt a bit like cheating. _Offsides_, her mind giggled. _Three._

It was about that time that Riley's lips started to move. It was only slight movement, opening slightly and clasping hers as she kissed him for a third time, but Claire's stomach still jolted. _Four_

It was normal, she reassured herself groggily, kissing the slightly moving lips slightly less gently than she had before. It was probably a nerve reaction, like scratching your ear in your sleep. Nothing to worry about. Her hand slipped down from the armrest to clutch Riley's arm.

His mouth was moving more and more now, opening more each time they kissed, and his breath was definitely not as steady as it had been.

_Five_, slurred Claire's mind. _Or Seven_. _What comes after Four_?

A hand curled around the back of Claire's neck, pulling her deeper into the couch. It was around then that she stopped counting.

Quite more than ten seconds later, Claire's back was pressed against the arm of the couch, Riley's arm slung around her neck and hand tangled in her hair the only thing keeping her from tumbling onto the rug. By now, Riley could not be described as inanimate in any way. One could go as far as to say that he was completely awake.

Claire wrenched her head away and reluctantly opened her eyes. Riley stared at her uncertainly, eyes wide open, his hand still threaded possessively under her struggling ponytail.

"You….you were awake this entire time, weren't you?" she asked, slightly short of breath.

He grinned sheepishly, eyes darker than usual.

"I can't believe-" Actually, Claire had no idea what she could or could not believe, because Riley had cut her off and his other arm was clenched so tightly around her waist that she couldn't pull away if she wanted to. Which she didn't.

A throat was cleared loudly, and Riley lurched off of her with almost comical speed, swaying on his feet in near disorientation. Ben stood in the doorway, his arms crossed, looking like he'd rather be anywhere else in the world.

"Sorry for the intrusion," he said with false cheerfulness, "but Abigail has a lead on the riddle. Thought you might want to help out."

Claire swung her feet around to the floor. "Yes, of course….ah, be right there."

Riley was already one step ahead of her, bolting out the door. She exhaled loudly and smoothed her tangled hair back across her head, looking up to find Ben fixing her with a stare usually reserved for her brother.

"Claire," he began evenly, "I know that you and Riley have a past, but you've made it abundantly clear that you're both with Grant and leaving once this ordeal ends."

Grant's name went down her throat like a piece of food too large to swallow. She had a boyfriend. How the hell had she forgotten?

"Ben, I-"

"We're all happy to have you back, don't get me wrong," he continued, steel entering his tone. "But if you've come back to screw with Riley's mind, then you need to leave. Now."

Unable to hold his gaze, Claire stared down, shame alighting her face. It was harsh, but she deserved it. They had always been so protective of each other, her old family. Facing that loyalty as an outside threat was lonely.

"Ben, I'm just here to get Ian back. What you just saw won't happen again."

"Good." He softened slightly, perching hesitantly on the arm of the chair across from her. "Look, ah, I know you've been having a rough time. Riley told me about the medicine. When was the last time you slept?"

Claire stood abruptly, ignoring the pretty swirls of color that obscured his face for a moment. "I'm fine." She said shortly. "What did Abbie find out?"

* * *

A cell phone interrupted the dreams of Katherine Dawes, who rolled over to bury her head into the pillows when something metal dug painfully into her hip, and she realized she had fallen asleep fully clothed. Dragging her cell phone from her pants pocket ruefully, (it had been an _exceptionally_ good dream) she flipped it open, pressed the speakerphone button and laid it next to her tousled head. "Dawes. What do you want?" 

"Agent Dawes?"

The voice was distantly familiar. She squinted at her bedside clock. "Do you have any idea what time it is?" she snapped.

"It's seven twenty-four," the voice answered hesitantly.

Bolting out of her bed, she squinted harder through contacts she had forgotten to take out. "Oh, shit!"

Well, at least she was already dressed.

Dropping down on her knees to search for her shoes, she had completely forgotten about the phone until the voice crackled again through the bad reception in her apartment. "Agent Dawes, are you there?"

Cursing under her breath, she snatched it up. 'Look, I'm very sorry about all of this, ma'am, but I'm going to have to call you back, I'm very late."

"It's Sunday."

She sagged down on her bed, one sock still in hand. "Of course it is."

Sunday. Of course. How could she have forgotten? It didn't seem like a Sunday morning, not without Howe sprawled out on her couch in the other room, where he usually stayed to bemoan the loss of his football team, proclaiming that he was never drinking again.

"Sorry to bother you, but it's Claire Howe. I believe we met a few years ago, but I know that you work with my brother."

Suddenly, miraculously, she was awake. "Miss Howe, of course, what can I do for you?"

What could she tell her? Claire didn't have the proper clearance to be informed about Ian's predicament. While, as his only living family, Claire would usually be informed immediately, the bureau wasn't taking any chance with a kidnap inside their home territory. Civilians remained ignorant.

"Actually, I have some information to share with you regarding my brother's kidnapping."

Dawes found herself back on her bed. "How do you…I mean, you're not…" she composed herself. "Miss Howe, how did this occur?"

At the other end of the converstion, Claire sat stiffly at the table in the library, Riley as far away from her as possbile on the other end of the table, Ben sitting across from her, was still reluctant on sharing information with the FBI. Abbie was the only cheerful one there, oblivious to the tension on the other side of the table. No one offered to speak the the agent on her behalf.

"Well Agent, I…._we_ received some kind of reansom demand in the mail a short time ago."

Dawes' tone turned to ice "We?"

Claire cleared her throat uncomfortably. "It seems that the Gates' son Patrick was also included in the kidnapping."

Dawes sputtered. "That's impossible. Howe's disappearace was a matter of national security; there was a breach at the Capitol."

Ben lept from his chair "The Capitol? Ian was taken from the Capitol as well?"

"Mr. Gates, what the hell do you mean 'as well'? As well as what?"

Ben looked around carefully at the remaining members of the table. "Agent Dawes, I believe we have a great deal to share with one another."

"You got that right, Gates," Dawes snapped. "You first."

"We'll meet you at the intersection of Washington and Essex. Please come alone."

"Gates," Dawes threatened with thinly veiled fury. "you and your little gang are going to come into the Federal Headquarters right now. You are going to tell me everything you know and then I'll decide whether or not to arrest you all for obstructing justice."

"With respect, Agent," Ben said mildly. "I don't think you're grasping the delicacy of this situation. We've been contacted with a ransom demand from what seems a very high place. We have no way of knowing if the Federal Headquarters are infiltrated or not."

"For your sake, I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that."

Riley poked smugly at his computer. "Hey, look at Watergate, Deep Throat, and the Area 51 spill. It's not our fault you guys are such Chatty Kathy's."

Ben planted his hands on the table, staring resolutely at the phone. "One hour, Agent Dawes. The corner of Washington and Essex."

"I'll be there, Gates, if it's only to throw you all in jail."

"Oh, you never know, Agent Dawes. It might be enlightening."

The phone line died with all the spite Dawes could muster. Ben grinned at Claire. "You're right. I think she'll help us."

Riley snorted. "Sure she will. Help us into the state penitentiary."

Ben clapped him on the back. "Riley, get the van ready."

Riley lifted his hands into the air. "I can't tell you how long I've waited to hear those words."

"Is she ready?"

"Ready?" Riley scoffed. "This, my friend, is God's gift to the four-wheeled works of art."

Claire turned to Abbie. "What van is he talking about?"

Abbie groaned. 'Only his project for the last year. We haven't been allowed to see it."

"I should think not!" Riley exhorted. "Did Michelangelo show David before he was finished? Did Da Vinci unearth his Birth of Venus before he was finished?"

Abbie rolled her eyes. "Botticelli did Birth of Venus, not Da Vinci."

"Whatever. They were both Illuminati."

Riley's incompetence in art history was overshadowed by the Gates' front door bursting open. All members jumped to their feet, Riley stashing his compuer protectively behind his back, only to see Grant stride into the library, his nose swathed in white surrounded by a panicked face.

"Grant?" asked Claire uncertainty, afraid that a scarlet letter had somehow affixed itself to the front of her shirt. "What is it? Is your nose all right?" Riley struggled to contain his laughter.

"No, my nose is fine. It's the Institution."

Claire moved toward him. "Is there trouble?"

Grant held up one hand, his clphone clenched in it. Jerry just called. There was a break-in last night."

"What?" Claire gasped. "But our security, how could anyone…." She noticed the shock on his face. "Grant was anything taken?"

He nodded. "They breached the cave. The altar you're studying's gone."

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Dun Dun DUNNNNNN! Yeah, I know, i'm a little rusty with the cliffies. But in the next chapter there's a CAR CHASE!! Oh yeah, and the explanation of the cool historical mystery/battle/conspiracy/love child of my historical labors that this story is really about, but theres also a CAR CHASE! You have no idea how excited I am to write it. Provided I get anough reviews to continue on to the next chapter...I do have a European History thesis due on wednesday. Reviews draw me away from all- important, essential-to-my-grade papers. Just don't ask me to write a makeout scene again; ugh, I want to take a shower. I'm sure you do to. Just review first.


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